Take Me To Your Leader

In case you haven’t picked up on the subtle nuances in my blog I love beer.  It is a glorious thing to sit around with a few friends and a few cold ones and enjoy the evening.  Flying Saucer is a chain of bars that is perfect for this, the menu accommodates any taste in beer, and the food isn’t too bad either.

The beer selection here is through the roof, the Saucer has an entire wall of taps that had me drooling from the moment I first stepped foot in this place.  The menu is a solid 4 pages of options and quite frankly it is overwhelming to say the least.  So of course I had to go with the option to try as many as I could.  When at a place specializing in craft brews or a microbrewery the best way to usually get this does is through an order known as flights.    These smaller glasses allow for a sampling of a wider variety of beers usually following a theme or flavor.

My first flight of the night was in the theme of one of my favorite beers in the world, India Pale Ale.    This beer is full of hops, giving it an incredibly bitter flavor, call me crazy but I enjoy having to make a face after each sip.  The IPAs on this flight included the following beers; Breckenridge 471, Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA, New Belgium Ranger IPA, Lagunitas IPA, and finally the one pale ale that snuck in the group Ranger Creek Oatmeal Pale Ale.  The IPAs were all good and crisp, but the Oatmeal Pale Ale was a nice throw in because it still had the hoppy bitter flavor but the oatmeal aspect definitely tones it down and gives it a smoother feel.

The second flight was in honor of the great state of Texas, and it definitely did not disappoint.  This flight included Drink’in the Sunbelt Hoppy Wheat Beer, No Label El Hefe, Real Ale Full Moon Rye, (512) IPA, and Live Oak Hefeweizen.  Now I have had a few of these before in the past (even blogged about the No Label before), but there were definitely a few new experiences in this group.  My personal favorite new flavor was the Full Moon Rye, it was a completely new flavor to me that I can’t quite describe, and the one downside was that it inspired the singing of “American Pie” by a certain member of our group that cannot really remember lyrics too well.

 

As I mentioned earlier, the food here isn’t half bad either.  Our favorite discovery here has been the nachos with bratwurst, yes it is a crazy combination but it is quite frankly delicious.  The nachos are topped with sliced brats, caramelized onions, beans, and cheese basically a simple yet flavorful dish that we make sure to order each trip.

 

Then came a food that has snuck into my blog posts in the past, pretzels.  There is something magical about fresh baked pretzels, not to mention the fact that salt goes hand in hand with a good cold beer.

 

Finally, there was the most lackluster appetizer of the night, we saw these Rocket Tots on the menu and got awfully excited, basically cheese and pepper potato tots with a habanero sour cream sauce.  Unfortunately, these were good for fried potatoes but that is about as fun as they got, the pepper and spice that we were expecting definitely was not there but that is ok because by that point the beer was in our blood and we were ready to call it a night.